Harvey Howard is the owner of My Gym Children’s Fitness Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is a certified special education teacher, elementary teacher, guidance counselor, and student assistance professional located in New Jersey. He takes the time to explain why parents should encourage confidence in their children.
It is critically important that parents take every step to help their children gain confidence in themselves. That plays out in so many ways as children get older. When children have confidence, they feel like they can trust their instructors, they can trust their environment, and—most importantly—that they can trust themselves to handle whatever situation may arise.
It’s common for us to see children who have far more skills, but don’t believe they are capable because they have lower confidence. On the other hand, there are others who will not perform as well and who may not have the specific skills yet, but will throw themselves into any situation and believe they can do it. It is that confidence issue that determines so much of a child’s experience and future at a very early age.
Confidence is a major issue we work on at My Gym. We don’t build Olympic athletes here, and that’s because we are not critical of the kids. We focus on having fun, exploring boundaries, and exploring capabilities. So that is the difference that parents want to look for.
What Parents Can Do
There are a number of things parents can do to encourage confidence in their child. Using encouraging words and telling children that they are doing a good job is a first step. Saying things like “I know you can do this,” is another way of showing your child that you believe in his or her abilities.
Of course, there will be times when children try something and in the adult’s eyes they may not have accomplished the task. Rather than saying that they failed, focus on what they accomplished in the process and stay positive. For example, if a child was doing a jumping activity where he only made it 1 foot instead of 2, focus on the fact that he made it half way off the mark. Say things like “You jumped 1 foot! Great job!” and tell him how proud you age.
For the most part, the child really can’t tell whether he should have jumped further. What he can tell is whether his parents are smiling at him. Did they hug him, praise him, or compliment him effort? He will take his cues on how to feel about the situation from that. Lots of positive reinforcement is one of the best ways to constantly build confidence in kids.
Reeling in Expectations
Another thing parents should do is put their children in situations where they can achieve success. For example, we had a parent at My Gym who brought his son and wanted him in a group with some older kids because they were friends outside the gym. Well, what happened was that the boy could not do the same activities as the other kids in that group because he was not developmentally ready for that level of activity. So he ended up spending his time crying, and quit the program. The parent created that failure—not the child—by not being realistic about where his son was on an individual level.
So parents need to match their child up with equals when it comes to activities, and put them in a homogeneous setting in terms of skill development. They do that with traveling soccer teams, where there will be a dozen different teams grouped on skill level from A to G. This lets the kids on the G team compete against other children with a similar set of skills and helps them to all feel like winners since no one child is much better than the others.
